Picture Day
by Loopy Lupa
Summary: It's picture day at Skool, and Dib's got Zim scared about getting his picture taken. Will Zim be able to overcome his fear of cameras? (Complete)


RIIING! The bell rang, signaling the beginning of class.   
  
Zim sat in his desk, awaiting another boring day with Ms. Bitters. Zim was an alien, an Irken from the planet Irk. His age on Earth was comparable with that of a fifth grader, as well as his height. His naturally green skin was not covered by his human disguise, but his red globule eyes and antennae were. Zim was trying to take over the Earth, but was failing so far.   
  
"Class, today we will be discussing Anthrax. It is a horrible disease that rots your-- Dib!" Ms. Bitters started on the lesson, but was interrupted by a boy walking in. The boy had spiky hair, with one long spike that bend back over his large head. He wore a black trench coat and black pants, with black boots on his feet. He also had glasses.   
  
"You're late, again! What's your excuse this time?" Ms. Bitter's demanded.   
  
"I was in the front office turning in an alien-controlled dog I found on the way to skool." Dib replied, walking to his desk and sitting down.   
  
Ms. Bitter's teeth bared, and she growled a little.   
  
"You're late every single day, Dib. I'm getting annoyed with it, and all of your excuses are getting old. I want you to stop it." Ms. Bitters slithered over to Dib's desk in her nasty, mysterious way. "Never be late again!"   
  
"Uh, okay." Dib said, trying to show a nervous smile.   
  
Ms. Bitters retreated to the front of the classroom again. She seemed to forget everything about Dib's tardiness as she droned on about how horrible Anthrax was. Like always, she was so immersed in her lecture that she paid no attention to anything else going on in the classroom.   
  
She naturally didn't notice when Dib started scribbling a note. At the same time, Zim raised his hand to interrupt the teacher.   
  
"Ms. Bitters?" Zim called.   
  
"What now, Zim?" She said, annoyed.   
  
"Can't humans coat their lungs in plastic to prevent this...rotting?" He inquired, looking disgusted at the thought of rotting lungs.   
  
"No, Zim, no we can't." She replied, before continuing on with the lecture.   
  
"Zim! Catch!" Dib yelled, folding the finished note into a paper airplane and throwing it across the room.   
  
It landed in Zim's wig, nearly flinging it off of his head. Zim hadn't paid attention to Dib's call, so he had no idea what was going on. He panicked with fear.   
  
"Aaah! Get it off me!" he screamed, jumping out of his desk and running around it in circles. "It's a human tracking device! I don't want to be tracked!"   
  
"Zim, sit down." Ms. Bitters said, sounding calm yet exasperated. "And get that paper out of your hair. It looks ridiculous."   
  
That's when Zim realized that it was a paper in his wig. He pulled the note out, rearranged his wig, and sat back down.   
  
"Just read it already." Dib yelled to him impatiently.   
  
So, Zim unfolded the note and read it aloud to himself.   
  
"Zim, just to let you know, picture day is coming up real soon. I doubt you know what a human camera is, but you should be scared of it. It will display an image of you for anyone to see. Are you scared now? Huh? Are you? Huh? You should be. See you later, Dib."   
  
Dib watched Zim read the note, smiling to himself. From the look on Zim's face, he could tell that his note was having the effect he was looking for.   
  
Zim scribbled a quick reply on the paper, folded it back up, and threw it back to Dib.   
  
Dib eagerly unfolded the note and read Zim's reply. It read: "Ha ha, Dib. I may not know what your 'cameras' are, but I'm not scared. You can't scare one as mighty as Zim! I laugh at your pitiful attempts at scaring Zim! Look at me, I'm laughing."   
  
Dib looked up to see Zim laughing evilly at him. Dib then turned around to face Rob.   
  
"Zim looks scared, doesn't he?"   
  
Rob looked up at Dib, frowning. "Don't talk to me. You're crazy." He said.   
  
Dib turned around, now frowning as well. Why did everyone think he was crazy? Was it because he was the only one who could see through Zim's obvious disguise?   
  
"Dib! Stop talking!" Ms. Bitters snapped suddenly. "You should pay attention as you may need to know this sometime. Your horrible life will probably be infected with Anthrax."   
  
"Yes Ms. Bitters." Dib sighed, reluctantly.   
  
Zim, though trying not to show it, was getting increasingly nervous about the Picture Day. He paid no more attention to Ms. Bitters's lecture, but sat in his seat sweating and fidgeting. His eyes were glued on the clock, which was drawing nearer and nearer to three o' clock.   
  
"If you ever see white powder anywhere, you will know that your life is forever doomed. Before you go home for the day, I am supposed to tell you that picture day is tomorrow. Everyone of you should look decent for your picture."   
  
At Ms. Bitters's last words, Zim started screaming. Ms. Bitters sat in her desk to wait for the end of skool.   
  
The purple-haired girl behind Zim calmly raised her hand. "Ms. Bitters?"   
  
"What is it, Zita?"   
  
"Zim's screaming like a howler monkey, again. Can you make him be quiet?" Zita asked.   
  
"No, Zita. Once they start screaming, there's no way to stop them. They are doomed to continue screaming for all eternity." Ms. Bitters replied.   
  
Everyone in the class, aside from Dib and Zim, covered their ears with their hands. Dib stood up and started laughing at Zim.   
  
Three o' clock suddenly hit. The bell rang and Zim stopped screaming. Everyone filed out of the classroom.   
  
Dib, like usual, walked home with his younger sister, who had purple hair, a black dress, and a skull pendant necklace.   
  
"You see, Gaz, I can use something new to Zim against him. He doesn't know what a camera is, and now, thanks to me, he's scared on them." Dib was saying.   
  
Gaz, like usual, was playing her hand held game system. "Why do you always talk about Zim?" she asked, not looking up from the Game Slave. "It's almost like you're obsessed with him."   
  
"He's trying to take over the Earth! Why shouldn't I be trying to stop him?" Dib retorted, sounding a little hurt.   
  
"Would he really succeed in taking over Earth if you weren't trying to stop him?" Gaz inquired further.   
  
"I doubt it."   
  
"Then leave him alone."   
  
"I want to be the one to reveal him for what he really is, an alien." Dib protested.   
  
"Just leave me alone when you do it, then."   
  
"You just don't get it, do you?" Dib said, then dropped the subject.   
  
Both Gaz and Dib were silent for the rest of the way home. The only sounds came from neighborhood dogs and the beeping of Gaz's Game Slave.   
  
Zim, on the other hand, ran all the way back to his secret base. He was eager to find out if cameras were really as bad as Dib made them out to be.   
  
He walked through his front door, decorated with a men's bathroom sign, to see GIR watching cartoons, as usual.   
  
"GIR!" Zim shouted, bringing the robot, dressed in his disguise as a green puppy, to attention. "Have you found out any information about earthanoid cameras?"   
  
GIR's mouth spread into a wide smile and his robot tongue stuck out over his bottom lip. He hopped up and turned the channel on the television set.   
  
It was a commercial. Zim sat down on the couch, and GIR sat back down next to him. As Zim watched, he saw two humans on the screen.   
  
"I've just got a new camera that I want to try out." one said.   
  
"Okay." Laughed the other. "Take my picture."   
  
The first person held a small, black camera up to his eye and pressed the flash button. The flash was so bright and blinding that Zim had to shield his eyes.   
  
When Zim removed his hands from his eyes, he was that the person who had their picture taken was dazed and looking like they were going to pass out.   
  
"What? They use these cameras to stun each other?" Zim exclaimed in disbelief.   
  
"I guess so." GIR replied, getting up and changing the channel again. Now it showed the Scary Monkey Show.   
  
Zim make some growling noises as he watched the monkey on the T.V. screen growling at him. "Ooh! That monkey!" He said ruefully. Zim had a history of hating the monkey, and the T.V. show.   
  
"Oh, but I love this show! It's my most favorite show!" GIR tried to reassure his master.   
  
Zim wanted to know more about cameras, so he pulled himself off the couch and walked over to a small table.   
  
"GIR, I'm going down into the lab." Zim called to the robot. The table lifted and the floor opened. A small hovering platform flew up to meet him. Zim stepped on.   
  
"Wait for me, master!" GIR yelled. He unzipped the green puppy costume that he was wearing and jumped out of it. In his real form, GIR was a small, metal robot. His robot eyes were blue orbs.   
  
GIR stepped onto the platform and it started to descend into the base below Zim's house.   
  
"Computer, locate all the information you can find on human cameras." Zim called as he walked towards the control center of the base.   
  
"Searching...searching....Compiling...compiling...." Came the computer's deep, robotic voice. "All found data compiled!"   
  
Zim reached the control center and took his seat in front of a viewscreen. "Show all data on the main viewscreen."   
  
Green letters appeared on the still-black viewscreen. Zim sat there reading it, looking more and more scared as he found out more.   
  
"What? They take pictures of themselves with the camera, then put the picture onto paper? Why would they do that?" Zim said to GIR, nearly laughing.   
  
"I like pictures." Was the robot's reply. "Sometimes I draw pictures. I use colors and make them pretty."   
  
Zim raised his eyebrow at GIR's last statement. He looked as if he were going to make a comment, but didn't. Instead, he looked at some sample pictures on the screen. They all showed humans smiling and waving.   
  
These pictures showed Zim a new threat.   
  
"What if someone looks at my picutre and realizes that I'm not a human?" He worried. "It would just take one person, other than Dib, to bring our missionto an end."   
  
Zim had a flash of himself in a tube filed wiht liguid. In his imagination, a scientist was saying that he could tell Zim was an alien because of his picture.   
  
Zim shook the thought away, and started to think about a way to adboid being found out.   
  
"GIR, how would I cover my face so if won't show up in my picutre tomorrow, and so I won't get stunned by the camera's flash?" Zim asked the robot, not expecting an intellegent reply.   
  
"uh, mmm, er, uh, um...." GIR said, then got up and left the room. e returned a moment later, holding an ugly green mask that slightly resembled Zim's face. "What about this?"   
  
Zim took the mask from GIR and turned it over several times in his hands. A grin spread across a his green face as he thought of the affect the mask would have.   
  
"It's perfect, GIR!" Why didn't I htink of it myself? No one will recognize me as an alien if I wear this." Zim placed the mask over his face.   
  
Suddenly, GIR's blue eyes turned to red. "You are an intruder!" He cried, being his occasional obedient self. He ignited the rockets on his feet and prepared to attack Zim.   
  
The alien quickly peeled the mask off his face, crying aloud. "GIR! It's me! I'm only wearing the mask!"   
  
GIR's eyes turned blue again, and he stuck out his robot tongue. "I didn't recognize you. I thought you were someone else."   
  
Zim closed his eyes and began to laugh maniacally. He knew the mask would not only protect his secret, but also his eyes from the flash of light.   
  
Zim laughed for several minutes until he suddenly stopped, sniffing the air. "Is something burning?" He asked.   
  
GIR looked as if he were suddenly remembering something. "My cookies!" He screamed, getting up and running to the kitchen. "My coooookies!"   
  
Meanwhile, Dib was trying to think of a way to make Zim's picture day experience as horrible as possible.   
  
He sat on the couch next to Gaz, who was still playing her Game Slave.Dib had a notepad, where he was drawing doodles of Zim and cameras.   
  
"How do you make someone who's afraid of cameras even more afraid of cameras?" he asked Gaz in frustration.   
  
"Why are you even in here?" Gaz asked, no looking up from her game. "Shouldn't you be doing that in your room?"   
  
Before Dib could reply, Gaz's question was answered. The "Mysterious Mysteries of Strange Mysteries" theme song started playing on the T.V.   
  
"It's already eight o' clock?" Gaz asked no one, getting off the couch. "I'm not sitting through this show again today."   
  
Dib started recording the show, paying avid attention to the stories people told of their alien sightings. In the back of his mind, a plan was beginning to form.   
  
Both Dib and Zim came to skool the next day with what they considered foolproof plans. Zim walked into Ms. Bitters's class wearing the green mask.   
  
A few minutes after skool began, Dib walked into the class with the pocket of his coat bulging.   
  
No one, apart from Dib, even noticed that Zim was wearing a mask. It slightly resembled his normal face, so no one realized it wasn't his real one.   
  
Everyone noticed Dib's pockets, though. The whole class had long since labeled Dib as crazy, because of his love of anything paranormal and his intelligence of science and math.   
  
"What's that in his pocket?" Zita asked.   
  
"Maybe it's a pillow to protect his eyes from the camera flash?" a brown kid in the fourth row, The Letter M, suggested.   
  
"I doubt it. Do you remember last year's picture day?" Brian spoke up.   
  
"Look at the way if bulges when if moves. It's like it's full of liquid." a geeky, orange-haired kid in the back of the room pointed out.   
  
Zita looked back at Keef. Not only was he usually quiet, but he pointed out something that the rest of them had missed. "Oh, I didn't notice that." she confessed.   
  
Zim had to smile under the mask. Not even Ms. Bitters seemed to realize that he wore a fake headpiece.   
  
Before any more could be said about the contents of Dib's pocket, Ms. Bitters addressed the class. She sat at her desk and held up her hands for silence.   
  
"You will all line up in alphabetical order by first name. Once you have completed that pointless task, you will go to the cafeteria to have your pictures taken."   
  
There was a scramble to get in line. Aki was the first in line, and Zita was last. Zim came right before Zita.   
  
The line walked out of the classroom and down the long hall to the cafeteria. When they got there, they joined a short line of what was left of Mr. Elliot's class. The rest of his class were around the hall, everyone one of them dazed and looking nauseous.   
  
Dib stopped by Gaz, who wasn't playing her Game Slave for once. "How bad is it?" he asked her.   
  
Gaz's half-closed, glazed eyes opened fully and twitched. She spoke in a spooky, hollow voice full of echoes, like she did when angry.   
  
"It was horrible! The man told me to smile, and the flash blinded my eyes. Even now, I can't see anything but flashes of light and color." Then her voice went back to normal. "Have fun, Dib."   
  
Slowly, the rest of Mr. Elliot's class got their pictures taken, and Ms. Bitters's class got started. Person after person stumbled out, each one looking dazed and stunned.   
  
The line grew shorter and shorter. As is grew nearer and nearer to Zim's turn, he became more and more nervous. Even through his nervousness, however, Zim noticed that Dib never came out of the cafeteria.   
  
"Hey, green kid, you're next." called the cameraman. Zim nervously walked into the cafeteria. "Sit down on the stool."   
  
The cameraman pointed at the stool in from of the his gargantuan camera. Zim sat down, starting to drip alien sweat.   
  
None of the cameras the computer showed were that big! He thought, growing even more nervous.   
  
"Smile." The cameraman said, but Zim did nothing of the sort. "Now say chee-"   
  
The cameraman's words were interrupted by a water balloon sailing over his head. The balloon flew on to hit Zim's head. It exploded on impact.   
  
Zim, and Dib, had long known that the alien had a weakness to water. When it touched his skin, he suffered pain and stared steaming.   
  
Such was the case now. Zim stood up and ran toward the camera, screaming, his arms outstretched and flailing wildly. As he ran around, the make flew off, and his wig nearly did the same.   
  
A flash signaled that the picture had been taken. The flash blinded Zim, who was looking at the camera. He became stunned like the other kids, and was led out into the hall.   
  
Dib walked out of the cafeteria a few moments after Zim. He wore a smug look on his face, and the bulge in his pocket was gone.   
  
"Ha, Zim. I'm laughing at your picture already." Dib said to the stunned alien, starting to laugh geekily. He had occasional snorts and everything. After he was done laughing, Dib ran away.   
  
A few minutes later, when Zim's confusion had worn off, he realized who had thrown the water balloon at him.   
  
"You will pay, Dib! Vengeance will be mine!" He screamed. Then Zim realized why Dib was not affected by the flash of the camera.   
  
"Why didn't I see it to begin with?" He demanded himself in frustration, accidently swinging his hand into Melvin's dazed face. "I should have worn GLASSES!"   
  
* * *   
  
The next day at Skool, Ms. Bitters had yet another important announcement to make.   
  
"I have your pictures back from yesterday." She said, pulling out a stack of pictures from her desk. "I am instructed to hand them out to you so you can see how ugly and disturbing you really are."   
  
Zim couldn't help but wonder what he would look like. He knew that if it wasn't for Dib's water balloon, he would have looked perfect.   
  
Ms. Bitters handed him his picture.   
  
"Your pathetic picture is worse than anyone else's in the class." the gloomy teacher commented. "You will have a worse future than the rest of your classmates."   
  
Zim looked at the picture. It showed his running towards the camera, his wig knocked askew. One one of his antennae was showing. His face was contorted with pain.   
  
"Despicable." Zim said sadly. "I must get rid of this picture. No other humans must see it."   
  
He got up from his seat and dropped his picture into the garbage can. Ms. Bitters glared at him, making Zim return to his seat quickly.   
  
Dib eyed the trash can, hoping the picture of Zim would be salvageable, and worth something. His own picture wasn't too bad, aside from the glare on his glasses.   
  
As soon as lunch started, Dib ran up to the trash can. He reached inside and pulled out Zim's picture.   
  
A smile spread across his face as Dib realized it had what he wanted. The antennae was proof enough that Zim was an alien.... 


End file.
